5 ms·

> Why write it the other way around. Maybe that's how the hypothesis under test was phrased?

by jhgb 6y ago

throwaway894345 6y ago
Indeed, reading further into the article they seem to be trying to answer, “At what stage in the funding pipeline do VCs become biased against women?”. It’s interesting that they don’t entertain the possibility that the gap might be caused by something other than bias (at least so far... I’m only 6 pages in). For example: > Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. In light of the substantial gender imbalance in real-world investments, our results suggest a larger-than-expected bias against female entrepreneurs in other settings. They seem to be trying to combat bias without having even established that bias is the cause. Indeed, they take the statistically significant discrimination in favor of women in the initial stage as evidence that there must be even more bias against women in later stages. Given that they haven’t cited any research that would explain why it must be bias and not some other factor, I wonder why the paper is written with this assumption? Perhaps the authors felt it would be poorly received if it so much as kept an open mind about other possible causes? Or maybe this is just common knowledge in the field?
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  "It’s interesting that they don’t entertain the possibility that the gap might be caused by something other than bias" Imagine a medicinal study that would concentrate on the hypothesis that sinners get cholera as a divine retribution for their sinful lives, and would not even entertain other possible causes, such as ... dirty drinking water. We would rightly locate such a study into, say, 1840, but definitely not 2021. That is where authors of this study belong mentally. Into the science of the era when Lincoln was young.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > We would rightly locate such a study into, say, 1840, but definitely not 2021. You give far too little credit to 1840 and far too much to 2021.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Look up 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. That was when the scientific breakthrough regarding bad water took place - and many actually refused to accept the results. Before that, the most "scientific" theory about cholera outbreaks was the miasma theory, but religious and pseudoreligious beliefs about divine punishment or influence of the stars were not fringe yet.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        To be clear, my earlier comment was made in jest. I’m familiar with the Broad Street outbreak, but I’m not aware that religious theories were commonplace among scientists of the time. Notably that science wasn’t taken seriously by society more broadly doesn’t mean that the science of the time was “tainted by religion” (I say this as a religious person). Perhaps we’re making different points: mine is that science today is contaminated by a fervor resembling religion (though I don’t want to overstate the problem—overwhelmingly I think the effect is very low for the time being and I suspect it is highest in areas that are most pertinent to the ideology in question, which thankfully tends not yet to be the hard sciences or engineering disciplines lest our bridges fail, buildings collapse, and rockets explode on the launchpad).

> Why write it the other way around. Maybe that's how the hypothesis under test was phrased?

by jhgb 6y ago

> Why write it the other way around. Maybe that's how the hypothesis under test was phrased?

Indeed, reading further into the article they seem to be trying to answer, “At what stage in the funding pipeline do VCs become biased against women?”. It’s interesting that they don’t entertain the possibility that the gap might be caused by something other than bias (at least so far... I’m only 6 pages in). For example: > Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. Combating bias requires understanding how and where it manifests. In light of the substantial gender imbalance in real-world investments, our results suggest a larger-than-expected bias against female entrepreneurs in other settings. They seem to be trying to combat bias without having even established that bias is the cause. Indeed, they take the statistically significant discrimination in favor of women in the initial stage as evidence that there must be even more bias against women in later stages. Given that they haven’t cited any research that would explain why it must be bias and not some other factor, I wonder why the paper is written with this assumption? Perhaps the authors felt it would be poorly received if it so much as kept an open mind about other possible causes? Or maybe this is just common knowledge in the field?

inglor_cz 6y ago
"It’s interesting that they don’t entertain the possibility that the gap might be caused by something other than bias" Imagine a medicinal study that would concentrate on the hypothesis that sinners get cholera as a divine retribution for their sinful lives, and would not even entertain other possible causes, such as ... dirty drinking water. We would rightly locate such a study into, say, 1840, but definitely not 2021. That is where authors of this study belong mentally. Into the science of the era when Lincoln was young.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > We would rightly locate such a study into, say, 1840, but definitely not 2021. You give far too little credit to 1840 and far too much to 2021.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Look up 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak. That was when the scientific breakthrough regarding bad water took place - and many actually refused to accept the results. Before that, the most "scientific" theory about cholera outbreaks was the miasma theory, but religious and pseudoreligious beliefs about divine punishment or influence of the stars were not fringe yet.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      To be clear, my earlier comment was made in jest. I’m familiar with the Broad Street outbreak, but I’m not aware that religious theories were commonplace among scientists of the time. Notably that science wasn’t taken seriously by society more broadly doesn’t mean that the science of the time was “tainted by religion” (I say this as a religious person). Perhaps we’re making different points: mine is that science today is contaminated by a fervor resembling religion (though I don’t want to overstate the problem—overwhelmingly I think the effect is very low for the time being and I suspect it is highest in areas that are most pertinent to the ideology in question, which thankfully tends not yet to be the hard sciences or engineering disciplines lest our bridges fail, buildings collapse, and rockets explode on the launchpad).